Matthew Hayden offered a rueful smile after his thrilling half-century was not enough for the Chennai Super Kings.

The Super Kings suffered a late collapse to fall short in their run chase against the Delhi Daredevils on Thursday.

Set a target of 190 after AB de Villiers hit an unbeaten 105 for Delhi, Chennai set off at a rapid pace fuelled by 57 off 27 from Hayden, and they needed only 84 off the second 10 overs.

Delhi manage to win a thriller

But they could not manage it as Mahendra Singh Dhoni went for five, Andrew Flintoff 16 and Subramaniam Badrinath seven and the run rate collapsed in the final overs as Chennai lost by nine runs.

"We had a bit of a run chase on our hands so I think that probably suited my style of play," Hayden said on Setanta Sports.

"You're on a hiding to nothing really so I came out and enjoyed myself.

"It's a great celebration of the game when you've got almost 400 runs from 40 overs, so the fans have enjoyed a great spectacle."

While he was among those to fail with the bat, Chennai captain Dhoni claimed the bowling was the difference between the two sides as Delhi piled on late runs while the Super Kings collapsed.

"We were nowhere close in the way we bowled at the death and hopefully our bowlers will pay attention to that," he said.

After Dhoni's cheap departure, Suresh Raina kept Chennai well on course for victory with a quick 41 from 27 deliveries before he too was caught by De Villiers on the boundary.

Flintoff, denied the chance to face his England team-mates Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah who were left out of the Delhi team, was subject to a big appeal for leg before on first delivery, and never really got going with any fluidity before he was caught by substitute David Warner at long-off for 16 off 17 balls.

It completed a disappointing day for Flintoff, who conceded 50 runs off his four overs without a wicket.

The late dismissals of Badrinath, Manpreet Gony, Joginder Sharma and Lakshmipathy Balaji completed the collapse as Chennai finished on 180 for nine.

I was a little bit scratchy, says Dilshan

Delhi got off to an inauspicious start with the loss of Gautam Gambhir on the first ball and captain Virender Sehwag soon after, but Tillakaratne Dilshan made 50 off just 27 balls before De Villiers took over, capitalising when he was dropped on 50 by fellow South African Albie Morkel.

"I was a little bit scratchy through the first 50 but I got a bit of fortune thanks to Albie and played well after that," Dilshan said.

"Once I got my 50 I decided to play a few more shots and that paid off."